


kotki dwa

by ah_kill_es



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Loss, Character Death, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, Lullabies, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV First Person, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 15:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20950760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ah_kill_es/pseuds/ah_kill_es
Summary: things in amsterdam don't end as good as they hoped.





	kotki dwa

**Author's Note:**

> ok a few things 
> 
> first off, yes this is as sad as it looks like it's gonna be,  
second, if there is someone reading this with actual knowledge on what you're supposed to do when you get shot please don't murder me this is all for the Drama™  
third, i'm begging my 3.5 words of polish aren't misspelled or some shit but the language really doesn't fuckin help  
fourth, this is my first published fanfic on ao3 so be merciful
> 
> have fun crying!

after the incident in the parking lot we'd rushed to the hotel, boris driving with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching his bicep, shirt and coat and hand covered in blood.

he spent half the car ride cursing them all out in guttural russian and the other half reassuring me he'd be okay, but i was too shaken to really listen to him. only god knows what was really going on in my mind, elbows on my knees and head on my hands. none of what was happening - boris hurt and bleeding, having to kill a man, our painting being snatched away from us - was sinking in. all i felt was a great, unnamed sense of dread, and all i could do was fix my eyes on my bloodstained shoes and see how the streetlights reflected off of them.

the second we got into my hotel room, though, everything became a little bit more horrifyingly real: i killed a man, the painting is gone, and, more importantly, boris is hurt. he'd been leaving a blood trail all the way from the car, and when he took his hand away from his wound another, redder wave trickled down his arm and onto the floor. i looked up from the stain and into his face, and a cold shiver ran through me: he was pale as a ghost, eyes unfocused and looking weaker than i've ever seen him.

i rushed to him and caught him right when his legs had given up on him. after all this years, boris was still thin, but somewhere down the road he'd lost that old starved quality of him: he now felt like dead weight on my arms as i dragged him to the bed, and it made my throat feel incredibly tight.

"boris! boris, for the love of god-" i unceremoniously dropped him onto the comforter and tugged his coat off of him, all the response i got was a weak grunt and a frown. "boris, please, please, can you hear me? boris-"

"potter, shut the fuck up" his eyes were still closed and he still looked in pain, but his response made a wave of relief wash over me nonetheless. 

"ok, ok, keep talking to me, i'm gonna go look for something to stop the bleeding," i got up from the bedside, stomach in knots before the sight of his ripped and bloodied shirt, searching for towels, napkins, anything that could help me. "and you better keep conscious."

"well, what do you want me to say? want me to start quoting crime and punishment, huh?" he was cracking jokes and trying to keep this situation as lightheaded as possible, but his voice was so weak and his skin was so pale, i stopped dead in my tracks and i looked at him. 

"boris, i'm gonna call the hospital."

"potter, no."

"listen, we don't know how serious this is, or what damage that bullet did, or how much blood you've already lost-" the sheets around his wound were a deep, deep red by now. "i'm not gonna let you bleed out in this hotel room."

he looked at me.

"if i'm gonna bleed out, i'd rather do it here." i must've pulled a face, because his expression softened. "tomorrow, news about what we did will be all over amsterdam. if i was at hospital, doctors would draw conclusions. i can't let that happen, and i can't let them know about you."

"boris, i don't care if i end up in prison for fucking life if that means you'll live-"

"well i do! you have to keep on living," he took a few deep breaths. "you have to get out of here. go back to new york. live. forget."

i walked to the foot of the bed. "are you fucking hearing yourself? you want me to abandon you here and live my life as if nothing of this had ever any meaning to me?" 

"yes." he answered, dropping his head on the pillow and looking up at me. "go back, get married, have kids, forget about that childhood friend who dragged you down to europe to die." 

i took a deep breath, trying to ignore what he was saying, and turned around. towels towels towels - stop the bleeding-

"potter." he sounded so, so sad. i turned. 

when our eyes met, all he did was shake his head.

my world crumbled around me.

"please." i said, weak and soft and on the verge of tears, "boris, please."

he just closed his eyes and patted the bed with his good hand. i came closer, feet heavy and mind empty, all of this seemed like an echo of my mother's death, but this time it wasn't the building what was collapsing around me. it was my entire life.

i feared moving boris from his position sprawled in the middle of the bed, so i curled on my side around him, a cruel parody of our nights in vegas. our hands found each other and our fingers intertwined. i buried my face on the crook of his neck and i breathed in. 

boris was dying.

and there was nothing i could do to help.

i took another breath, my body shaking, and i tightened my hold on his hand. he placed his chin on top of my head, and right when i was about to start crying, i heard his voice.

"a-a-a, kotki dwa,  
szarobure, szarobure obydwa… "

i raised myself on my elbow, my other hand still on boris', and looked down on him.

there had been very few times in our lives where i saw him this peaceful. it brought back memories from vegas, of waking up in the middle of the night for no reason and just staring at him next to me in bed, all sharp angles and weary expressions forgotten under the moonlight bathing us both.

boris must've heard me moving, because he opened his eyes and looked up at me.

"ach, śpij, kochanie…"

a teardrop fell onto his cheek, but he wasn't crying. his calm, almost melancholic behavior was making me feel out of place, me and my sadness and early grief.

boris took his hand away from mine and placed it on the back of my neck, bringing our foreheads together.

"jesli gwiazdke z nieba chcesz dostaniesz,  
wszystkie dzieci, nawet źle,  
pogrążone są we śnie,  
a ty jedna tylko nie…"

his voice broke on the last line, and it took him some time to get his breath back. his face was soaked on my tears, and i could feel him breathing on my lips. 

he had closed his eyes, but he opened them again to look at me.

"kocham cię, theo."

there it was. after years and years of trying to not think about it, of trying to pass off 'shh, potter. is just me' as friendly comfort, the 'you're the only boy i have ever been in bed with' as just drunk, mindless nights - it was out. his- our feelings.

my voice was wrecked with tears when i answered.

"i love you too, boris." 

and he smiled. and it was the single, most beautiful thing i've ever seen. forget the fucking painting: this, this is the art that deserves to be showcased to the world, the art that i should have devoted my life to instead of old chairs and heavy clocks. and here i was, finally facing and accepting these feelings while the reason i was having them was dying in my arms.

"theo." he said, effectively getting me out of my own head. "stop thinking. pocałuj mnie."

"but you're gonna die," i sobbed, clutching his shoulders. "and it's all my fault and i can't live without you, boris, not again, not forever-" 

he kissed me. and in that moment i truly understood achilles' pain, of having your lover fight your battles and lose.

"not your fault." he said when we parted, hand going through my hair one last time. "i love you." his voice was broken and not above a whisper. "i love you, theo." he was no longer looking at me, his eyes were unfocused.

i forced myself to watch. "i love you too."

the red stain on the covers had grown to a ridiculous size, almost surrounding half his head, making him look like a blood bathed martyr.

the hand on my hair had gone slack. the way it lost its grip and fell on the bed was stupidly dramatic, it almost didn't look real, but again, nothing of this did.

boris, dead? the man who, as a child, had saved me from myself over and over again? no. it couldn't be. and yet, here was his lifeless body, open eyed and still warm.

i laid down over him, and cried.

hours had passed, i didn't know how many. the sun was already up. only god knew what day it was.

i was still on top of boris. i hadn't moved in all this time. our last night together. 

i got up. everything hurt, but i was too numb to notice. i didn't even need to think about what to do now, it was all clear. i walked over at the desk, where i had shoved some pills in the back of one of the drawers. there weren't a lot, but just enough. i took them out of the bottle and, almost mechanically, went to the bathroom.

'a-a-a, a-a-a,  
byly sobie kotkie dwa…'

boris. boris singing. boris and i, on the playground, laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. and now that he was gone, there wouldn't be any more of that. i didn't even want to think about how i could realistically get through life, now that he was dead; but the truth was simple enough: there wasn't a way. i simply could not go back to my old life and act as if this had never happened, although that's what boris wanted.

'a-a-a, kotki dwa,  
szarobure, szarobure obydwa.'

i shoved the pills in my mouth and filled the now empty bottle with water. i put it to my mouth, and drank. 

'ach, śpij, bo właśnie  
księżyc ziewa i za chwilę zaśnie' 

i left the bathroom without bothering to look at my own, fucked up reflection. i knew it'd remind me of boris. i walked to the bed.

'a gdy rano przyjdzie świt  
księżycowi będzie wstyd  
ze on zasnąl, a nie ty.'

i laid down on boris' wounded side and held his hand as best as i could, already deep into rigor mortis.

shh, boris. it's just me.

**Author's Note:**

> does theo actually understand polish canonically? who gives a fuck, he does now
> 
> come scream at me abt boreo  
tumbrl: @kill-your-poets-society


End file.
